[Shikijin]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

^ Likewise. For every exchange, very rarely does Koyomi become a tsukkomi. He's always the boke.

That's not true, in many cases the straight man is Araragi. Even Tsukihi said that the straight man was mainly his thing. It depends on who the other character is, though. I think Hanekawa and Tsukihi are almost never the funny man.

IIRC, the best example of an emotion Tsubasa can portray is— ah, darn it. Neko Black really destroyed Tsubasa's credibility in portraying true emotion. Now, I have to wonder if the smiles and giggles she had portrayed in Bake ever had a hint of sincerity... or all of those are "logical responses to a particular stimulus".

You could say Hanekawa gets multiple impulses from the events. For example, Hanekawa had to bury the cat, yet she would have rather not. In a way, she is authentic because she still obeys one of her impulses; in another way, she is not authentic because she doesn't obey to certain impulses. Some could consider this as lying, though it is something different.

Hanekawa does have genuine emotions. For example, she was distressed at Araragi saving another girl (Senjougahara) beside her. Simply, the way she expressed was very indirect: she told Araragi her girlfriend wouldn't have liked him to get close to another girl.

The problem of Hanekawa, more than her emotions, lies in the fact she is gifted and her thoughts are much more complicated than an average person.

Originally Posted by Kanon

The ending tied well into Bakemonogatari. The way I understood it, Araragi's love for Hanekawa didn't count as his first love because the person he was in love with (the mask Hanekawa wore) didn't exist.

It didn't count as his first love because he chose expressely not to consider it love.

Just in case, I will explain that the original used a Japanese expression, "wearing a cat". That means "feigning innocence". Some translated it as "wearing a facade" (brilliant translation in its own way), but ultimately it only refers to how the blame is shifted away on the supernatural cat.

The Hanekawa Araragi knew (though he admitted he didn't know much of her) was the real deal, as proved from the fact that she did go to save him when he mailed her for help. He just liked Hanekawa better when she was still trying to do her best. The fake in this case would be cat Hanekawa.